Ludonarrative Dissonance: How FF8's junction system undermines its narrative

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subversiveasset

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Published on May 2, 2020 3:00:25 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHuJGX2ZQS8

Game:

Final Fantasy VIII (1999)

Duration: 13:06

1,018 views

83

If Squaresoft weren't cowards, they would have prevented Final Fantasy 8's Irvine Kinneas from being able to junction. Fight me!!! Let's discuss the ludonarrative dissonance of FF8's Junction system!

Let me explain. The idea of "ludonarrative dissonance' is inconsistency between the narrative that gameplay is trying to tell vs the narrative that the story of a game is trying to tell. For the most part, many games have utterly ignored what should be the obvious implications of their gameplay elements -- at the very least, every game in which you can barge into people's homes and steal all of their items should make you an extremely wanted criminal.

For the most part, we simply accept gameplay as a sort of 4th wall convention, however. We are more willing to suspend disbelief the further gameplay is from story. When the two start coming too close, the dissonance can hit an uncanny valley.

I think Final Fantasy 8 has that problem. A core gameplay mechanic is its junctioning system (which attempts to defeat the common JRPG trope of level grinding, but it replaces level grinding with junction and draw grinding to build up Guardian Forces, or GFs.) This creates a situation in which you can have supersoldiers at very low level.

The game plays with junctions as being a core function of its plot as well. So, junctioning is a big part of the villain's motivation, and several plot events could not happen but for junctioning.

But when there's a tension between the narrative (which builds junctioning as a dangerous act that only one of the game's militaristic schools, or "Gardens", authorizes) and gameplay (where junctioning is an essential part of combat and character development), narrative *loses hard*. Characters who should be extremely conflicted about junctioning (such as Irvine) have no lasting reservations.

🎵 Song: Blue Fields
🎮 Game: Final Fantasy 8
🎼 Composer: Nobuo Uematsu

*****

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